by Lance Allred
My Father, I am about to turn 27 and I feel my time is running out and my age is now just another to add to a too long list of limitations that have been set upon me. I know I ask you for a lot, and I know I can never repay you in full for what you have given me. And I know that continuing to ask for more can be viewed that I do not appreciate what you have given me thus far. And that is not true, for my family, friends and loved ones, and my life are the greatest gifts you have given and always will be.
With all of these blessings, I need one more. My Father, when you gave me my patriarchal blessing 12 years ago, I took it to heart, every word in the literal sense. With it, I assumed and embraced my challenge of pursuing a basketball career despite my limitations, knowing you would be with me every step of the way, and that I may be an instrument in your hands to glorify you and your mercy and compassion that you have shown to me despite my flaws, pride and fallacies.
My father, it is 12 years later now, and I am very tired. I am worn and fatigued and stressed beyond speaking, and I avoid human interaction because of it. I know I ask for a lot, again I know, and I know I don’t deserve to ask for anything more. But I beg of you to let me have this one moment. Just this moment in time where I can look back and say, “We did it. It was worth it.”
Even if a 10-day contract is all I ever get, it will all be worth it. Our time has come, my Lord, and it is time for the world to see how you have blessed and guided me through this life.
I wouldn’t be asking this if you had not promised it to me.
My father, I do not care about the money, or the fame. I just want to be able to say that I set an “unreachable” goal and I made it. Please, help me to do so, so that I may glorify thee. This is my one wish for this new year of 2008.
Your son,
Lance Allred
P.S. Thank you for Mac, and tell Szen I said “Hello” and I miss him.
This is a big week for me. I am not oblivious to that fact. I tell myself and every reporter who asks me that the showcase is just another game, and if you’re playing harder than you normally would just because someone is watching you, then shame on you. You should play as hard as you can every night. While I tell the truth, I’m also lying.
This is more than just another game for me. It will be a manifestation. The wheels of momentum have finally begun to churn for me, as my name is now trickling through the phones of NBA front offices. “Lance Allred?” they ask skeptically. “The one from Portsmouth?”
Yes, Lance Allred. As of right now, Idaho is on a ten-game winning streak. We hold the best record in the league. I lead the team in scoring and rebounding. I lead the D-League in double-doubles and player efficiency per forty-eight minutes. I’m rated as the midseason MVP.
My nerves are so uptight that the night before our first game, my back flares into spasms. I spend the evening on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, holding my tigereye stone in my hand. The next morning we have a shoot-around at Boise State in their auxiliary gym. A front-office executive from one of our affiliate teams is there to tell Coach he should be playing their assigned player more, which incidentally means more time for him and less for me. Coach Gates pats me on the back reassuringly and says, “Everyone will know your name.”
Before the game I get a request to do an interview with Sports Illustrated, and since it has nothing to do with Rick Majerus, I agree. Ian Thomsen sits down with me in the locker room, three hours before the game. What was supposed to be a twenty-minute interview turns into two hours as Ian scribbles his notes and worryingly checks his recorder to make sure the battery is still charged. He asks me questions that range from polygamy and religion to sociological and economical philosophies and inquiries about my travels. John Greig comes in on the interview, introduces himself to Ian, gives me a hug, and wishes me luck. “Just go out there and have fun,” he says encouragingly.
Ian ends the interview and lets me know he wants to continue it later in the week before the showcase is over. He leaves the locker room, and I’m finally able to sit in silence for just a few moments before anyone else trickles in. I sit at my bench, curling my toes in the carpet as the voice on the PA vibrates through the walls.
This is my time.
My teammates begin to filter in, coaches coming back and forth, scribbling scouting adjustments on the board. Coach Lopes, one of my all-time favorite assistant coaches, stands in front of me and says, “No matter what happens, I’m proud of you. At this point, you cannot fail. You have already achieved so much.”
The game before ours finally ends. I look across the court and see my old teammate Britton Johnson walking off the court. He has recently come back from a shoulder injury that kept him out all season till this point. I want to say hello, but I also don’t. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I try not to look up, but even as I’m turning my head to face the hoop as I shoot my warm-up routine, my visual memory catches faces in the crowd that I recognize. Faces that decide whether or not I’m good enough.
The five-minute warm-up mark passes, and I go to the center of the court for the team-captain pregame meeting with the night’s officials.
We run our layup lines, warming up our legs, as the home crowd files into the seats, making indistinguishable those faces that I want to pretend are not there.
The horn blows, and we walk to our benches as the starting lineups are announced. While waiting for the visitors to be called, I lie down on the floor in front of our bench. “Rebound and run,” I say as I lie on my back. “Rebound and run. Rebound and run,” I order, reminding myself to keep things simple. I stand for the national anthem. The lights go dark, and I begin to whisper my mantra, which I whisper every game during the national anthem:
I, Lance Allred, am a child of God, and I know that
He loves me.
I will be an example of Him at all times.
I, Lance Allred, will live life to the fullest and never settle
for less than my best.
I will be the best basketball player that I can be.
I, Lance Allred, will play in the NBA.
I will hand over my life to the Lord for his doing.
I, Lance Allred, will achieve all that I desire, for the Lord has
promised me so.
The horn blows, and I step onto the floor.
I make my first six shots in the first quarter, recording fourteen points and seven rebounds before the buzzer sounds. I have to sit out the second quarter and split time with two assignments down from Seattle and Portland. I’m prepared for it. “Control what you can control,” I tell myself.
Scouts and GMs waste no time at all and began to trickle over to John Greig, who smiles back at them with an “I-told-you-so” look on his face.
“John, he is a completely different player. Night and day!”
“John, where has he been?”
“John, why didn’t you tell me he was this good?”
When the final horn blows and the final stats are recorded, I have twenty-four points and twelve rebounds in twenty-four minutes.
I’m named to the all-showcase team.
It’s cold out in Boise today. I can see this even through my window shades. A dim gray seeps into my room. It’s 6 a.m. Mac is lying next to me, sound asleep, while I cannot sleep at all.
I stare up at my ceiling, a ceiling in an apartment that I don’t own, a place that I cannot call home. I have no place to call my own, I remind myself as I mentally sift through all of my possessions, which are stacked away in either Jacob Beebe’s house or Tara’s house or other places that I have long since forgotten.
All of my immediate possessions and a few of my many beloved books are with me. I reach over to pet Mac, who starts at my touch and stretches sleepily, only to fall back asleep.
It has been a month since the showcase.
“You’re going to be called up real soon,” they told me after the showcase was over.
Soon. Soon. You’re going to be called up real soon. You’re this cl
ose. You’re so close. How close is close? How soon is soon? I’m still here in the D-League, and my play has deteriorated. Not drastically. But I’m not as sharp as I was two months ago. I’m thinking too much. I’m analyzing every game. I trick myself into fearing that each game is make-or-break. That I have to uphold the buzz I created for myself, which I fear is as capricious as the business I work in. Tomorrow they could all just forget about me. Or have they already done so? Did my buzz go as fast as it came?
We’re on an eighteen-game winning streak. Last week, on the night of my twenty-seventh birthday, we broke the D-League record for longest winning streak, at sixteen games. It was a great birthday. I was proud of my teammates; I was proud to call them my friends. I will remember that moment forever.
Though we’re winning, and will continue to win, I’m tired. I’m burned out. I have gone as high as I can go here. I don’t know of anything else or anything more I can do. I have climbed this ladder to this level, from the very bottom rung to the very top, and I’m ready to keep climbing, but I cannot, as there’s a ceiling blocking me.
Jaded. Jaded is the only way I can describe how I feel on this cold, gray-sky morning here in Boise. I’m not depressed. I’m not angry. I’m not bitter. I’m jaded.
I’m disheartened. Tired. Exhausted. Weary. How much more do I have to fight? Is this as far as it goes? Was the comeback dream a train of steam that could go only so far? Was I just another tragedy? Was I just another sad, sad story of life, and how it’s never what we want it to be?
Is my lesson in all this simply that I had to learn to validate myself? That only I can validate myself? Yes, I have learned that true validation comes only from within. It was a beautiful lesson that has carried me across the globe, to faraway places that most can only dream of. I’m thankful for it. But I want more. I need more. I didn’t come this far, so close, down and back and around again, every which way, trying to find my own way in, just to walk away.
We have practice today. Some more defensive slides that Gates has us do every day. I don’t want to go to practice. I want to sleep. But I can’t sleep. I’m void of all emotion except for exhaustion. I’m so exhausted that I can’t even rest my eyes without the fears of falling short startling me back to my senses.
I don’t want to practice today. What if this leads to nowhere? What if I don’t get the call-up? Why should I keep going?
Why do I keep fighting?
“Because I choose to.”
I nearly fail to recognize that it’s my own voice that has startled me from my inner dialogue.
I sit up out of bed and stare at the claw scars on my hands and wrists that have accrued over the years of basketball. I put on my shoes.
“Because I choose to,” I say aloud one more time as I stand up to take Mac outside on his morning walk.
Just another cold, gray-sky morning in Boise.
All-Star Weekend 2008, February 15–17, came, and Cory, Randy, and I were chosen for the all-star team. Coach Gates and Coach Lopes were coaching. Randy was excited for us to come down and see his hometown of New Orleans and give him the chance to show us around. When we landed, the bus picked us up, and I watched the city as we drove by, noticing the water lines on the freeway walls that showed how high the flooding had reached in the city during Katrina. From the freeway I saw houses by the sea, boarded up, with giant Xs marked across them to show they were still abandoned. I saw lots that had been sheared clean of everything; they were empty and lonely.
But to my surprise, downtown New Orleans was incredibly clean and presentable. I’d later learn that while the downtown area and the French Quarter had been hit, the French Quarter had not been dealt as hard a blow as other parts of the city. And New Orleans had made a smart move in cleaning up the main downtown area. Between downtown and the French Quarter, the city was attracting tourists again, and it needed the tourist revenue to help fund the rebuilding efforts in other areas. I was so impressed with all the history and the architecture in the old districts. I was even more impressed with how much the people loved their city, how proud they were of their heritage, and how warm and welcoming they were and eager to share their stories with outsiders.
People often go to New Orleans for the same reason they go to Las Vegas. I hate Vegas. I hate the superficial flair that coats the hollow city. I hate the heat. New Orleans is all heart and soul. There are casinos there and other outlets of vice, just like in Vegas, but accompanying these are things that Vegas cannot offer: plantation tours, the French Quarter, Jackson Square, St. Charles Cathedral, voodoo shops, steamboat rides, crocodile farms and other aquariums, fishing tours, and so many other things. And then there’s the food.
I’m not a big food guy. I eat basically just to survive, as I grow bored and impatient when I’m eating, eager to get on with the daily chores of life. But in this place, New Orleans, the food was indescribable. When Cory and I arrived at the downtown Hilton, right off the French Quarter, we found Randy walking back in, as he had arrived a few days earlier to organize many of his NBA community events for his hometown. He told us to walk a few blocks down to Mother’s. It was a red-brick building, and from the inside it looked a former slaughterhouse or meat-packing plant. The restaurant had been created in the 1930s. Their sandwiches—or “po’boys,” as they call them—were very good. When you go, get the “Debris” sandwich. And let’s not even talk about the pecan pie. It was the most delicious pecan pie I’ve ever had. Cory and I went back the next morning for grits and ham and eggs. Just a great place.
That first night in New Orleans, after we did our NBA TV interviews, Randy took us to a five-star restaurant in the French Quarter that a high school friend of his had inherited, named Brennan’s. The atmosphere was incredible. When you sat down and looked out the window from the deck to the garden and absorbed all the sounds and the music, you knew you were in the Big Easy. His friend, who owned the place, was Alayna, a pretty blonde with an easygoing but sophisticated dialect who was very welcoming and generous, as most New Orleanians are. Randy led us to his favorite spot, asking to be served by his favorite waiter, Ray, an older gentleman who had spunk. We ate turtle soup and gumbo for appetizers and then some salad. Growing up with a turtle, I was very conflicted about eating the turtle soup, but it was delicious. I had to eat it, because food is a part of one’s culture, and when Randy offered me a bit of his heritage, it would’ve been rude and closed-minded on my part not to try it. The main dish was an incredible trout with fresh crabmeat on top. I cannot emphasize enough how amazing this meal was. For dessert, Ray cooked us some bananas Foster in a giant pan with a huge scoop of brown sugar and some rum, topping it off with ice cream. And when we were done, Alayna wouldn’t let us pay for anything. It was the greatest meal I have ever had, free or not.
After dinner I walked down Bourbon Street. You see and hear things about Bourbon Street, and as this was my first time in New Orleans, I wanted to make sure I walked along Bourbon. Two things stuck out for me: how short the street is, and how many strip clubs there are in the tightly packed street, hidden in the old French-and Spanish-style buildings. For as much free sexuality as there was, or was said to be, via beads on Bourbon Street, I had never imagined that there would be strip clubs. It just seemed like trying to sell water to a fish.
Randy is the King of New Orleans. He is a legend there, and you would think the New Orleans Hornets would consider themselves lucky to have him on their team, even as a fifteenth man. Even if he isn’t playing, he is a great coach and tutor for the younger point guards, and he is a part of the community. People know and love him. Just by having him there on the bench, the people of the city would be more inclined to go to the games, knowing they have a guy there who grew up in, understands, and thrives in their intricate city and culture. As of right now, the Hornets have no natives on their team.
That night was dream-factory night for the Development League. Randy participated in the hot-shot competition, and made one shot, I believe. There was a three-poi
nt contest, and then there was a dunk contest, and two of my high-flying teammates, Brent “Air Georgia” Petway and Mike Taylor, were participants, both facing off in the final round. There was also the H-O-R-S-E contest, which I was slated to participate in. In a H-O-R-S-E contest, one player puts up a shot, and the opponent has to duplicate the shot exactly or he gets his first letter, an H. The first player to spell H-O-R-S-E loses. It was the first-ever H-O-R-S-E contest for the D-League, and would be the first in the NBA for over thirty years. “Pistol” Pete Maravich and “The Ice Man” George Gervin faced off once. I’m sad we never got to see Bird and Jordan face off in an official game of H-O-R-S-E.
My father hated basketball, but H-O-R-S-E was a game, the only game, he would play with me. Utahns take H-O-R-S-E very seriously. There’s a basketball court in every church house. And to stretch the letter of the law, Mormon boys play H-O-R-S-E on Sunday, so they won’t break a sweat and thus the Sabbath.
I found out only the weekend before all-star week that I’d be participating in the H-O-R-S-E event. I had injured my shooting hand the week before, bruising the bone in a palm when I tried to break my fall after being undercut following a layup. I had spent the entire week resting, icing and rehabbing my hand, and it was very painful to shoot the ball, so I couldn’t get into the gym to practice any creative shots. I went into the contest cold turkey. Seeing that I wasn’t able to practice on anything tricky, my strategy was to simply shoot my bank shots from long distances and funny angles. These are game shots for me, and I have been shooting them for years. It was a safe way to go for the H-O-R-S-E competition. Now, I know most people want to see flair and jaw-dropping visuals, but that isn’t me, and I didn’t get invited to all-star weekend by doing any of that. I was going to simply keep doing what got me there.
In the final round, I was matched up against Morris Almond, an assignee from the Utah Jazz, who was the scoring leader in the D-League at the time. He had played around in the first round with lots of balancing, and sitting and kneeling shots, and he was having a good time. I, however, used the same approach that I did in the first round—straight for the kill. I ultimately ended up beating him with a bank shot, boring him into submission.
